Unprepared Next Gen Faces 'Stone-Cold Scarcity'

Today marks a national sea change, the “end of an economic era, a political era, and a generational era,” writes David Brooks in the New York Times. “The baby boomers have been a politically undistinguished generation,” he writes, and now, “change is demanded." If the polls are right, that change will come in the form of a man buoyed by the “upscale educated class”—a generation used to prosperity who will take the reins at a time of scarcity.

“In an age of transition,” Brooks notes, “the children are left to grapple with the burdens of their elders.” They'll have to struggle to make good on promises to cut taxes and revolutionize energy, in a time that will see resources continue to evaporate. "We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize or have a plan for."
(More Election 2008 stories.)